Lawmakers most likely to push anti-LGBTQ+ legislation — bans on healthcare, restrictions on transgender students, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, attacks on marriage equality — are often the same lawmakers elected from heavily gerrymandered districts that dilute Black and Hispanic votes

Today, in a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the most serious blow to the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in its 60-year history. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map — which included a second majority-Black district to comply with the VRA — was unconstitutional. While the majority insists it has not struck down Section 2, which bans voting laws and maps that dilute the political power of minority voters, Justice Kagan’s powerful dissent makes clear what really happened: the Court has “eviscerate[d] the law” and brought about the “now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the foundation on which modern civil rights law is built. It was, in Justice Kagan’s words, “born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers.” Every legal protection our community has won — marriage equality, employment nondiscrimination under Bostock, protections for transgender students, the right to be free from state-sponsored discrimination — exists because of the constitutional and statutory framework that the VRA helped establish and defend.

When the Court signals that it is willing to gut a foundational civil rights statute by reinterpreting it into uselessness, no civil rights protection is safe. The same legal reasoning, the same skepticism toward Congress’s authority to remedy discrimination, and the same willingness to demand near-impossible standards of proof can be — and has been — turned on protections that matter to LGBTQ+ people.

Our safety, our families, and our basic dignity depend on having lawmakers who will defend us — and on being able to vote them into office. When state legislatures can redraw maps to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino, and other minority communities without legal consequence, they don’t just harm those communities. They reshape who holds power in statehouses and Congress.

This matters profoundly for us. The lawmakers most likely to push anti-LGBTQ+ legislation — bans on healthcare, restrictions on transgender students, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, attacks on marriage equality — are often the same lawmakers elected from heavily gerrymandered districts that dilute minority votes. Fair maps and full voting rights are not separate from LGBTQ+ equality. They are how we build the political coalitions that protect it.

Justice Kagan warned that “minority representation in government institutions will sharply decline” and that the consequences “are likely to be far-reaching and grave.” States are already moving — Florida, Mississippi, and others — to redraw maps in ways that would have been illegal yesterday. The 2026 midterms will be conducted under rules that have shifted dramatically, and the lawmakers elected under those rules will shape policy on every issue we care about for years to come.

This is a moment that calls for clarity, not despair. Congress can act to restore the VRA. State courts and state constitutions still offer protection in many places. And the broad coalition of civil rights organizations — including ours — that has defended progress before will defend it now.

What you can do

• Stay informed. Follow trusted civil rights organizations for accurate updates on what the decision means in your state.
• Contact your members of Congress. Urge them to support the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and other legislation to restore VRA protections.
• Vote, and help others vote. No court decision can take that away.

The Voting Rights Act has been one of the most consequential civil rights laws in American history. Its weakening is a loss for every community that has ever depended on the law to protect equal participation in our democracy — and that includes ours.

We dissent, with Justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, and Justice Sotomayor. And we keep going.